


Don’t Ruin This On Me

by elysiumwaits



Series: Be Still, My Foolish Heart [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: A lot of intense emotional eye contact, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Bottom Cloud Strife, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Intense, Just filthy, Love Confessions, M/M, Overstimulation, Pining, a little slow to start, almost 9k words of emotion disguised as smut and smut disguised as emotion, banter in bed, honestly pretty tame though, oscillates between hot and adorable so prepare yourselves, realistic sex communication, talk of future kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 14:12:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysiumwaits/pseuds/elysiumwaits
Summary: The truth is that Cloud has always wanted Zack. He’s just never believed that Zack could want him in return.“Cloud is standing on the edge of a cliff that he’s been walking towards for five long years.Zack’s eyes drop again, and he shrugs helplessly, searching Cloud’s face. ‘Are we just gonna keep dancing around this?’”





	Don’t Ruin This On Me

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first thing I’ve written in a while, namely because I’ve been dealing with memory loss and some issues with language and vocabulary after some pretty intense seizures. So, if you see anything a little off about this piece, I apologize - it’s been super hard to crank words out because they’re not coming as easily to me as they have before. 
> 
> This is ramble-y. It’s blatant emotion porn, might seem super cheesy at some points. SORRY.
> 
> I’m still working on “Falling, Falling” as I can, but updates for that will come slow as I get my writing legs under me once more.
> 
> Head on over to my tumblr (find me at elysiumwaits.tumblr.com there) if you’re looking for chatting and such. 
> 
> Also, please use condoms when you have sex, my dudes. 
> 
> Title from Hozier’s “Almost (Sweet Music).”

Cloud hasn’t been drinking, not really. 

He’s nursing a beer, but honestly not paying a lot of attention to it, between Zack at bar next to him and whatever ridiculous idiot is attempting to sing karaoke on the makeshift stage stuffed into the corner of the bar. They can’t even really hold a conversation over the off-key, drunken serenade that seems to constantly be happening around them, instead communicating strictly in Zack’s incredulous looks and Cloud burying his face in his arms trying not to actually laugh at the people who think they can sing, saving it all up for the ones who are at least being bad on purpose. 

It’s the ones that sing the crooning love songs that get to Cloud, though, that make him take that occasional drink of his beer.

Tifa is constantly rolling her eyes from where she stands wiping glasses and occasionally taking orders - it’s not an incredibly busy night, most patrons too distracted by the karaoke show to keep her too busy, so she at least has the ability to meet Cloud’s eyes and give a knowing, pointed glance at Zack. Inevitably, when Cloud makes absolutely no move to get what both he and Tifa know he wants, she rolls them again, and turns away. The process repeats every fifteen to twenty minutes or so. 

Zack’s not drinking either, Cloud knows. He’s never been one to actually drink at the bars he drags Cloud to, instead going for the atmosphere and the company, or so he says. He’ll get absolutely shitfaced back at one of their apartments, and he isn’t angry when Cloud gets absolutely shitfaced at the bar, leaving Zack as the one to drag his sorry ass home or to the beat-up-yet-comfortable couch back at Zack’s apartment.

It’s an arrangement they’ve had since college, after all. Zack’s never been comfortable partying in public, preferring to keep an eye on Cloud, or so he says. Cloud knows, though, of a handful of times when Zack was drinking a little too heavily before he started drinking strictly in private, and the stories that Cloud could tell are, he’s sure, the stuff of legends at their old stomping grounds. He’s not too reliable of a narrator though - he was always more focused on Zack than he was anything happening around them.

Karaoke finally starts to wind down as the night drags on, in part because it kind of becomes less hilarious revelry and more sad bastards singing lonely songs, and people start to leave. Most nights, Cloud feels the hilarious revelry more than the sad bastards. Sometimes, though, when the low lights of the bar hit Zack’s face just right, eyes turned away from Cloud, Cloud feels those lonely songs hit somewhere deep in his chest. They hit even harder than the crooning love songs - the love songs are like wish fulfillment, or so Tifa has said when Cloud is a little too drunk with her and maudlin enough for the both of them. 

The lonely songs are just a little too close to home. Tonight is a sad bastards singing lonely songs kind of night, if Cloud’s being completely honest, and Tifa’s pushing isn’t helping at all.

It’s useless, this crush he has. Zack is Cloud’s best and closest friend, for one, and completely out of Cloud’s league, for another. Zack is bright and effervescent, whereas Cloud usually feels like he’s just hanging on to the tail of Zack’s comet, streaking across the sky and hoping he’s clinging tight enough not to fall and burn through the atmosphere.

Astronomy metaphors now - it really is a sad bastards’ lonely songs kind of night.

Cloud turns back to his beer as the last tearjerker country song finishes up, wonders if it’s a little too late to order shots so that he can get plastered and happy again, put on a front for what’s left of the night ahead. As it is, he’s not feeling a buzz at all - he’s drank maybe half of the beer in front of him, and he’s had it since they arrived, despite Tifa’s offers to bring him a fresh one. 

“Last call!” the karaoke director announces into the microphone, and one by one, the singers and their designated drivers head to the doors. Zack and Cloud stay on the stools they’ve occupied most of the night - Seventh Heaven nights are long ones, done when Cloud doesn’t actually have to work the bar the next day, when Zack doesn’t have any early classes, when they’ve got time to relax from the week and just enjoy each others’ company. Usually they’ll stay past closing, help out with various chores around the bar, Cloud having worked Seventh Heaven long enough to fall into work-mode easily despite whatever level of inebriation he’s managed to reach.

Tonight, though, Tifa stops in front of them, crossing her arms with a sigh. “Alright, boys, I’m kicking you out a little early tonight. I’ve got work to do in the office, and if you stay, you’ll try to close up for me.”

“I mean,” Zack says with a wide grin, resting his folded arms on the top of the bar. “That is what we usually do on Wednesdays, Tifa. And  _ usually _ , you like to take advantage of it.”

“I don’t mind,” Cloud adds with a shrug. 

“I do,” Tifa says with a stern face in Cloud’s direction. “You would live here if I let you, and work yourself to death in the process.”

Zack turns his grin on Cloud next. “Okay, she  _ does _ have a point there.”

“Now get out,” Tifa says with an impatient shoo towards them from the other side of the bar. “And for god’s sake, Zack, make him unwind and get him out of this funk.”

It’s Cloud’s turn to roll his eyes, but he slides off the stool in unison with Zack. They head to the door with twin waves and goodbyes, aimed at the office door that Tifa has already vanished behind. The cool night air outside is a refreshing reprieve from the hazy environment of the bar - it’s only midnight, but the bars never stay open later during the week. Cloud stuffs his hands in his pockets, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes for a second.

When he opens them a moment later, his gut instinct (like always) is to look to Zack. 

Zack’s looking at him, though, his expression unreadable in the dim lights of the signs, streetlights, and headlights nearby. A second later, and the moment’s passed them by - Cloud drops his gaze to the rough sidewalk, wet from the rain that’s been plaguing the whole city lately, and that ever-present, familiar smile forms on Zack’s face once more like a mask sliding into place.

“My place?” Zack asks, cheerful as ever. “Booze and video games?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cloud says, and can’t help the small smile that comes with the idea. Smiles are, as Aerith says, a side effect of being in Zack’s company. 

Any night spent with Zack is a good night, and maybe that happiness is tinged with a little desperate longing, but Cloud will soak up all of those nights he can get in any capacity that he can get them before they’re gone - before Zack finally finds the girl of his dreams or the high paying job his degrees will get him, and Cloud loses him to the inevitability of life marching on. 

“Since I apparently need to relax,” Cloud adds after a too-long moment of silence.  _ God _ , but he’s somber tonight, even if it’s only in the privacy of his mind. Those lonely songs sure hit him hard, he supposes.

Zack starts walking, and Cloud falls into step next to him. It’s strange how in sync they are, have always been, considering that Cloud is pretty tiny compared to Zack’s bulk. It’s not that Cloud’s out of shape, exactly, he’s more what they call lithe, it’s just that he doesn’t find the same joy in working out that Zack does. Zack’s workout regimen is  _ insane _ , and that is a hill that Cloud will readily die on. 

For a little bit they walk in silence. Seventh Heaven isn’t far from Zack’s apartment, which in turn isn’t far from Cloud’s apartment, and the silence is companionable rather than uncomfortable. They’ve done the walk without saying a word to each other before - the quiet of the night lends itself to introspection more often than not, unless, of course, Cloud is drunk and babbling while Zack attempts to herd him home, laughing and teasing all the while. 

“Remember when we were roommates?” Zack says suddenly, catching Cloud off guard. It’s out of the blue, breaking the silent bubble that had formed around them as they walked. 

“It’s pretty hard to forget, considering it was literally all of my college experience,” Cloud replies with a grin. “Also, considering your complete disregard for wearing pants around the dorm.”

“Only for the first semester.” Zack is... strangely subdued, Cloud realizes, his voice a little quieter than normal, hands in his pockets instead of gesturing wildly. “Then you told me I was distracting.”

“Distracting is your middle name,” Cloud teases, trying to draw Zack out from whatever funk he’s put himself in. Apparently Cloud’s funk is contagious, and guilt cuts through him suddenly.

“No,” Zack says, eyes sliding to gaze at Cloud for a long moment, soft smile playing on his lips, “it’s yours.”

Cloud has no idea how to respond to that. When Cloud had called Zack distracting in his boxers all those years ago, it was a slip of the tongue - a tiny confession of his attraction that he assumed Zack had just taken as friendly instead of sexual. That was back when they were friends, but not best friends yet, back when Cloud wanted Zack naked more than he wanted Zack to hold his hand. And now for Zack to say that  _ Cloud _ was the distraction? And to look at Cloud like  _ that _ , under his lashes with that private little smile… 

They’re still walking in the direction of Zack’s apartment, but Cloud feels like the dynamic of the conversation has shifted into uncharted territory. 

“You used to do this thing on Friday mornings,” Zack says, still in that soft tone, almost wistful. Nostalgic. “You’d have to wake up for that god-awful eight o’clock lecture, and I’d be half-asleep in my bed, because I was smart and signed up for the ten o’clock instead. You’d lay there for a minute after the alarm went off, waking up, and then you’d sit up and stretch.”

Cloud’s feet are moving, but he’s not paying attention to where he’s actually going anymore. He’s just following Zack like it seems like he always has, listening to the cadence of Zack’s voice and enthralled by his words - there’s no rhyme or reason to them yet, Cloud can’t make sense of their overall meaning, what Zack’s point is.

“And I’d watch you, like some creep,” Zack goes on, “because I was too chicken to do anything about it. But you’d always wear these shirts that were just a  _ little  _ too short when you stretched, and you were always just in your boxers back then, and you’d...   _ stretch,  _ and I would see just a little hint of… and I’d just want to tackle you onto the bed and not let you out of it again.”

Cloud’s breath catches. 

He can’t look at Zack. He’ll give too much away if he does. Instead, he watches as his feet keep moving, his sneakers on the soaked, dark concrete heading towards something that feels inevitable. 

“And I thought...” 

There’s a new thread to Zack’s voice, something underlying that Cloud can’t name, but that makes him ache in sympathy. 

“I thought that maybe you felt it too. I could feel you watching me. That’s why I avoided the pants for as long as I did. It was pretty dumb, looking back. I guess I was hoping you’d somehow be braver than I was, and make that first move.” 

Cloud still doesn’t look, can’t bring himself to raise his eyes just yet, but years of being by Zack’s side has given him the ability to know when Zack’s looking at  _ him _ , and right now Zack’s gaze on Cloud’s down-turned face is heavy and heady in a way that Cloud’s only known in wishful thinking and late-night daydreams.

Cloud can feel when Zack looks away again. “Five years later, and neither of us has worked up the courage to make that move.”

Zack stops walking. Cloud stops as well, purely automatic reaction to Zack’s movements, and when Cloud finally drags his eyes up he finds that they’re standing in front of Zack’s apartment building. Like always, like  _ always _ , like the moth that he is drawn to the bright, burning light that is Zack, Cloud turns his head and finds Zack’s outline in the gentle white light coming from the building’s foyer. Zack’s hands are in the pockets of his dark pants, his t-shirt rumpled, and his eyes are bright when they meet Cloud’s, desperate and imploring.

“Zack,” Cloud manages, quiet even in the night around them. He doesn’t know what to say after that, though, no idea how to articulate what he’s felt for  _ years _ now, and the silence hangs heavy between them, almost tangible. 

Zack’s shoulder’s move in a shrug, one hand slipping out of his pocket and coming up to card through his own hair in that frustrated way that he does sometimes. He tilts his face up to the shrouded night sky above them, like he’ll find all the answers there in the dark rainclouds, like he’s gathering courage or saying some desperate prayer, and Cloud can feel the charge of this moment like a weight in his  _ throat _ .

A beat.

Cloud is standing on the edge of a cliff that he’s been walking towards for five long years.

Zack’s eyes drop again, and he shrugs helplessly one more time, searching Cloud’s face. “Are we just gonna keep dancing around this?”

Maybe, Cloud thinks as he rides the shockwave of the question, maybe this hasn’t ever been as one-sided as he thought. Maybe all this pining he’s been doing has been mirrored in Zack, maybe every moment, every glance, every conversation has led to  _ this instant _ .

This instant.

Standing close together, but not close enough in the too-dim white light of a cheap bulb.

The feel of a rainstorm coming in the air around them.

Zack’s eyes on Cloud’s, and Cloud looking back and finally, finally  _ seeing _ .

This instant, and every single moment after.

“No,” Cloud says, soft, and takes the first step forward, toward the apartment building he’s walked into so many times before, toward the man standing and waiting and hoping. “Zack, you know I’m awful at dancing.” He grimaces - that wasn’t the smoothest thing that had ever come out of his mouth.

Zack grins though, and loses some of the tension in his shoulders, hand dropping down from his neck to hang at his side. “You always end up just running into me,” he admits. “You’ll get it one of these days.”

“No, I won’t.” Cloud’s closer then, barely six inches between them, standing in the light coming from the building’s glass doors with Zack, like some kind of frame. “But I want you to keep trying to teach me anyway.” 

There’s a well of courage that Cloud’s never drawn from before swelling in his chest. He reaches then, hesitant and gentle, settles one hand on the warmth of Zack’s waist, watching as Zack’s breath catches and his eyes widen. He wonders if Zack’s heart is beating as fast as his - if he’s allowed to press a hand to Zack’s chest to feel it now.

“I only ever even tried for you,” Cloud goes on, and he can’t stop the words now, not when Zack’s already confessed. He’s always given as good as he’s gotten. “Just because I wanted your hands on me.” Courage fails him just enough that he drops his chin, can’t look Zack in the face, red staining his cheeks.

Zack’s fingers, this time, reaching out to trace the line of Cloud’s jaw, drawing his face up, his eyes up again, to look into Zack’s and  _ see _ once more, everything that he’s been hoping for. The space between them is gone now, bodies pressed together with intent, Cloud’s chest against Zack’s.

“I wanted whatever I could get,” Cloud almost-whispers, breath against Zack’s lips, so close now and still not quite touching. “Whatever you’d be willing to give me.”

A laugh, somehow broken and yet so incredibly happy at the same time, escapes Zack to glance over Cloud’s lips, and oh, how Cloud  _ wants _ . 

“Cloud, I would give you the fucking  _ moon _ if I could.”

Cloud has imagined kissing Zack a couple thousand times, sometimes multiple times a day. He’s thought of gentle, playful kisses that would make him smile. He’s imagined deep, romantic kisses that would send his heart swelling. And in the dark of night, he longs for desperate, hungry kisses that would come before Zack’s body pressed him to the bed.

This kiss is nothing like those. This first time that Zack kisses Cloud is the impact of a meteor slamming into the earth, something that they should have seen coming long before it hit. It’s Zack’s lips parting against Cloud’s, Zack’s tongue seeking desperately to explore, to taste. Zack’s hands clutch at Cloud’s shoulder, Cloud’s hip like he’s never going to let go, like he’s not willing to let anything take this from him. 

It’s nothing like the kisses that Cloud’s imagined, because it’s all of them at once. Gentle, in that Cloud feels so safe, deep in that Cloud can’t imagine ever coming up for air, and desperate in that Cloud has been aching and pining and  _ wanting  _ for so long.

When they pull apart, Zack doesn’t let go. Cloud doesn’t either, from the grip that he has on Zack’s t-shirt and the belt loop of Zack’s jeans. Zack’s palm slides from Cloud’s shoulder to cup the back of Cloud’s neck, gentle and firm and warm. 

“I should take you to dinner before I take you to bed.” Zack’s voice is rough in a way that Cloud has never heard before, but is strangely similar to the way that Cloud has always imagined it.

“You bought me dinner two days ago,” Cloud replies with a grin that he can’t help. 

“I don’t think McDonald’s at 4 am when you’ve just gotten out of work should count.” Nonetheless, Zack lets go of Cloud’s hip to curl around his wrist instead, stepping toward the door and pulling Cloud along with him. 

Cloud is reluctant to release Zack’s shirt or belt loop, but it seems to be necessary to get where they both seem to want to go. “You can wine and dine me later,” Cloud says as Zack keys in the code to let them through the door. The light of the foyer is harsh now that they’re directly in it, and even though Cloud falls into step as he always has, Zack doesn’t seem like he’ll be letting go of Cloud’s wrist anytime soon. 

“Wine and dine you?” Zack says as they take the stairs up to the next level a little faster than they have before. “Babe, I’m gonna make you breakfast tomorrow in nothing but an apron and call that our first date.”

“If I even let you out of bed.” Cloud laughs, breathless, and suddenly they’re at Zack’s apartment door, and Zack is fumbling the key into the lock, pushing the door open, and pulling Cloud inside. 

The door closes, the light is gone, and the moment crashes in on them once more. The hand on Cloud’s wrist yanks, pulling Cloud’s body into Zack’s. At the same time, Zack moves forward, pressing Cloud between himself and the door, both hands finding purchase on Cloud’s waist. 

Cloud is suddenly aware of how  _ turned on _ he actually is, arousal thrumming through his veins and mixing with the giddy euphoria of a previously unattainable dream within his grasp. Literally, even, he thinks wildly, seeing as he can fist his hands in the back of Zack’s t-shirt, pulling the other man somehow even closer. 

“Bold of you to assume we actually make it to the bed.” The low timbre of words is a rumble that Cloud can feel against his own chest. Cloud didn’t know Zack’s voice could get that deep.

“If you fuck me against the wall for our first time,” Cloud says, like he’s actually threatening something. It’s lost immediately when Zack’s lips find his again, hungry and determined. 

The hands on Cloud’s waist slide up to skim across the skin underneath his shirt - conveniently, one that he’d stolen from Zack a couple of years ago and just never given back. They grow bolder as they go, grasping instead of skating, fingers dipping just barely beneath the waistband of Cloud’s slightly-too-big jeans. 

They break for air, Cloud’s head dropping back against the wood of the door as he watches Zack watch him, eyes dark with lust in a way that Cloud’s only seen in his imagination. Those eyes glance down from Cloud’s to linger on his mouth instead, and one of his hands comes up to thumb at Cloud’s bottom lip, kiss-swollen and positively aching for more. 

“I want to take my time,” Zack murmurs, strangely loud in the near-silent apartment. His hand slides back to tangle in the mess that is Cloud’s hair. “God, I want to spend  _ hours _ learning you.” 

Cloud can hear the desperation laced through Zack’s words, though, can feel it in himself in the hum of his own body. “Next time,” he says. “Next time, Zack, I can’t… I don’t think I can wait, it’s been…” Cloud blinks at the sudden, furious mist of his eyes, fists his hands in Zack’s shirt, and the climacteric words tumble from his mouth, unchecked. “Fuck, Zack, I  _ want you _ , I’ve  _ always _ wanted you.  _ Please _ .”

The hand in his hair tightens, firm but not painful, and Zack crashes into him once more, now those biting, desperate kisses that Cloud had longed for all those lonely nights. This is all Cloud has ever wanted, he thinks almost deliriously. He never wants to leave this moment of the precipice, this feeling of beginning, of something amazing on the horizon.

Somehow, Zack guides their stumbling through the dark of the apartment to the bedroom. It isn’t until Cloud hits the bed, pushed down with Zack covering him immediately that Cloud comes back to the reality of the moment. 

It’s everything that he’s wanted, but it will change everything that he knows. An entire worldview, redefined and reshaped to fit the fact that Zack wants him too.

He must communicate it somehow, in that strange nonverbal language of theirs that they’ve created over the years. Maybe it’s the way that his breath catches and his eyes go from half-lidded to wide, maybe it’s in the tension that suddenly fills his body.

“It’s alright,” Zack says, and the warm weight of him shifts just enough to give Cloud the space he suddenly needs. “It’s alright, Cloudy Sky, I’ve got you.”

And just like that, with the words and the use of that stupid nickname, Cloud’s okay. They’re okay.

They’ll be okay.

He gets his hands back on Zack’s t-shirt, this time pulling in a way that clearly indicates he would like it over Zack’s head and thrown aside as soon as humanly possibly. Zack obliges, by sitting up and straddling Cloud, tossing the shirt somewhere into the dark recesses of his bedroom. He doesn’t come back down, however, even though Cloud reaches to pull him close once more. Instead, a wicked grin crosses his face, and he presses down, grinding the curve of his ass against Cloud’s crotch.

Cloud’s hands fly up to grip Zack’s waist. He has absolutely no hope of holding Zack in place, and he knows it - it’s more that Cloud is hanging on for dear life. 

“How,” Cloud asks, not really able to get the question all the way out. He knows what he wants, but the all-consuming lust of having Zack above him is definitely interfering with his ability to form sentences.

Zack, of course, understands. “You said on the street,” Zack says, low, and finally shifts to press himself to Cloud once more. Instead of resuming their kiss, however, Zack’s teeth graze the shell of Cloud’s ear, breath hot on the sensitive skin there. “You said that you would take whatever I’d give you.”

Cloud can’t breathe, hands sliding up Zack’s back and dragging down again. 

“We can do this any way that you want,” Zack rumbles. “But, babe, what I want is to fuck you through this mattress until the whole thing falls apart underneath us.”

God  _ damn _ , but Cloud has never wanted anything more. 

“Yes,” he manages to breathe out. “That, I want -  _ Zack _ .”

Zack pulls back, yanks Cloud’s shirt up until he manages to get it off, tossing it aside presumably to disappear into the existence beyond the bed that Cloud absolutely doesn’t care about. A sound that Cloud can’t name, thready and desperate, escapes him as Zack’s fingers find the button of his jeans, jerking them open and tugging the zipper down. Zack shuffles back, drops to his feet on the floor and deftly pulls Cloud’s jeans down and away. He gets rid of his own pants as well while Cloud watches, and of course, of  _ fucking _ course, Zack is absolutely not wearing any underwear.

Cloud stares. He can’t help it, the way that his mouth waters and how he can’t look away. Zack is hard, thick, and Cloud has seen Zack’s cock before but never like this, never with the knowledge that it’s going to be inside him, that all of Zack’s arousal is for  _ him _ .

It’s just Cloud in his boxer briefs now, hugging tight, the last layer between them. Zack stands between Cloud’s spread legs and reaches, fingers the band of his underwear and meets Cloud’s gaze once more. He’s waiting, Cloud realizes, for permission. For Cloud to back out if he wants to, and Cloud is so incredibly in love with this man.

“Yeah,” Cloud says, and his own voice sounds foreign in that moment, like he’s swallowed a handful of gravel.

Zack tugs the underwear down slowly, hungry eyes seeming to devour every centimeter of exposed skin. Cloud lifts his hips to help, throws his hands up over his burning face - it’s  _ overwhelming _ , is the thing, Zack’s eyes on him and seeing everything that Cloud has worked so hard to hide, the obvious evidence of how much Cloud wants him right there, bared to the cool air of Zack’s dark apartment and the heated weight of Zack’s gaze. 

“ _ Jesus _ .”

Cloud’s hips buck in surprise, a groan tearing from his throat, because that word is ghosted right over the head of his cock. Zack presses him to the bed, hands firm on the bony juts of Cloud’s hips, and licks a stripe up the underside of Cloud’s erection, drawing a surprised, near-desperate moan from him from behind his hands.

“Cloud.” 

Zack’s voice is cajoling, and a kiss is pressed to the sensitive skin of Cloud’s inner thigh, high enough that Cloud shivers, breath catching.

“Cloud, baby, let me see you?”

Words, sighed over Cloud’s soft skin, punctuated by gentle, open-mouthed kisses. 

“ _ Please _ , Cloud.”

Cloud is undone. He drags his hands away from his face, blinks slowly up at the ceiling before he lifts his head to look down the line of his own body at Zack. He’s not prepared for the sight of Zack’s hands holding his hips down, Zack’s lips pressed to him so intimately, Zack’s blue eyes blown dark with lust. He is  _ absolutely _ not prepared for the way that Zack lifts his head, cocky grin in place, and keeps Cloud’s eyes with his own as he leans over and maneuvers the head of Cloud’s cock into his mouth.

Cloud drops his head back again, losing the ability to hold it up with the sudden, incredible burst of hot, wet pleasure. Zack’s fingers flex on his hips, dragging down Cloud’s skin to instead spread across his inner thighs, pushing Cloud’s legs even further apart. It’s  _ bliss _ , both the feeling of Zack’s mouth around him and the knowledge of it being Zack at all. 

It’s so good,  _ too good _ , and Cloud manages to let a keen escape him, head tossing as his hands grip the blankets of Zack’s bed. “I can’t,” he finally gasps out. “Zack, I  _ can’t _ .”

Zack pulls off, hands gentling on Cloud’s thighs. “Can’t what, Cloud?” he asks, and his voice is filled with concern, tinged with fear, like he’s afraid that Cloud’s about to call off the whole thing.

Cloud takes a second to breathe before he gets his elbows under him, props himself up to look at Zack. His eyes are wide, he knows, and he can’t help the way that he’s panting like he can’t get enough air at all, thinks it might have something to do with the racing of his heart and all of the blood in his body being directed to his dick.

“I can’t… I will come in a  _ minute _ if you blow me,” he finally gets out, and watches relief bloom across Zack’s face. “I don’t want this to be over that fast.”

“Cloud,” Zack says again, in that low, rough way that Cloud’s already in love with. Has been in love with for years, if he’s being honest.

Zack crawls up Cloud’s body, weight and skin sliding against him in a way that’s absolutely  _ devastating _ , coiled muscle and precise, deliberate movements, until Zack is braced above him. For all of Cloud’s shy hiding behind his hands earlier, now he finds that he can’t tear his eyes away from the way Zack is looking at him, expression open and hungry and yet, somehow, so very earnest.

“Cloud, this won’t be  _ over _ ,” he says, and drops himself, presses their bodies together and rolls his hips against Cloud’s, presses his lips to the line of Cloud’s jaw just once. “This isn’t a one-and-done thing for me. I’m gonna want you tonight, tomorrow, and every day after that.” 

Cloud’s heart seems to clench and then beat wide open, and his fluttering, unsure hands come up to grip at Zack’s waist. He smiles, turns his face into the kisses that Zack is littering across his jaw and cheek. “I won’t be done, either,” he says. “But I specifically meant this moment. I don’t want to come that fast. I want...” Cloud pauses - he’s never been one for dirty talk, tends to get embarrassed, and it’s evidenced in this instant by the blush he can feel heating his cheeks. He can’t even get the words for what he wants out, but instead manages to say, “I want to make this last.”

He can feel Zack’s smile curve against his cheek, and then there’s that voice in his ear. “You want to draw it out.” Zack rolls his hips again, pressure and heat against Cloud’s cock that send the blond right back into the hazy heat of arousal. “You want to wait until you’re so desperate for it that it hits you like a fucking freight train.”

“Not too long,” Cloud insists, remembering the desperation with which they stumbled to the bed in the first place, the way that Zack had promised to spend hours learning him at a later date. “I just, I need…”

“I know,” Zack says when Cloud struggles to say what he wants yet again. Then Zack is pulling away, out of Cloud’s grasp, shushing him when Cloud lets out an unhappy, wounded noise. “We need lube, babe, and a condom.”

It’s a good point, and so Cloud settles, props back up onto his elbows to watch Zack lean over to the nightstand to grab lube out of the drawer. The room is dark except for the gentle glow of the lava lamp on the dresser against the far wall. Normally Cloud thinks the lava lamp is utterly ridiculous, but in the light of their confessions, he wonders if Zack has been hanging onto it since their college days for sentimental reasons. And in any case, the green glow is certainly kind to the play of Zack’s muscles as he twists and bends away from Cloud, digging through the clutter of the drawer for his prize.

Cloud gets a little lost in the visual, in the curve of Zack’s back, the swell of his ass, looking in a way that Cloud hasn’t really allowed himself to look. He’s lingered, of course, but always felt guilty about it, felt like he was betraying their friendship by taking more than was given to him. Now, however, he has  _ permission _ , and that permission is made very clear when Zack turns back and gives Cloud a similar overlong, wanting stare. 

The lube hits the bed beside Cloud, a small tube that bounces. 

“Small problem,” Zack says. “I,  _ somehow _ , don’t have any condoms. I, uh, was not exactly expecting tonight to go this way.”

Cloud blows out a sigh. It’s a thinking sigh, not a frustrated sigh. “I mean. I had a test a couple of months ago and haven’t been with anyone since. But we don’t have to - if you want one, we can go get some or, or we could do something else?” The thing is that he trusts Zack, and he’s never gone without a condom before, but if he were going to do it with anyone, it would be Zack.

Zack stares down at him for a long moment. “I haven’t been with anyone since Aerith,” he finally says. 

The sentence completely sends Cloud’s brain offline for a second, absolutely does not compute. “You broke up with Aerith two years ago. You haven’t had sex in  _ two years _ ?” Zack is incredibly attractive, for one thing, shamelessly flirtatious for another. But now that Cloud’s thinking about it, Zack  _ hasn’t _ dated since Aerith. Cloud just always thought… well, he’s not sure what he thought now, but he knows what he  _ assumed _ , and he’s a little guiltily glad to be wrong.

Zack nods, drops to the bed beside Cloud and drags his hand down the plane of Cloud’s chest. “Yeah, well. She wasn’t you. No one else would be you, either. Point is, I’m clean.” That hand finds Cloud’s chin again, turns it so that Cloud can see Zack’s serious expression. “But if you want a condom, I will blow you for a minute or however long it takes to get you off, and then I will  _ literally sprint _ down to the convenience store on the corner and buy some while you’re recovering from an earth-shattering orgasm.”

“I trust you,” Cloud says quietly, grin on his face. “I don’t think we need one if you don’t.” He blushes again, glances away from Zack’s face because he doesn’t want to give away how much he would really like for Zack to fuck him bare, how much he wants to feel Zack coming inside him. 

“Well, if you’re clean, and I’m clean…” Zack drags Cloud’s face back again. “And you don’t feel like I’m pressuring you into this…”

“Not at all,” Cloud says quickly.

Zack grins. “Then I think our plan of me fucking you until the bed breaks is still a go.”

A thrill of heat runs down Cloud’s spine. “I would… I would appreciate if we got around to that, yes,” he says. It’s easy, this banter between them, and it’s so relieving how through all the heavy, desperate emotions of the night, they can still have this.

Zack draws Cloud into another kiss, and Cloud lets his eyes flutter closed, gives himself back over to the arousal and the heat simmering between them. His erection had flagged a little during their conversation, but when Zack wraps a hand around him, it quickly revives. It’s even more pronounced when he hears the click of the lube bottle opening and the anticipation hits him.

Zack is going to fuck him.  _ He can have this. _

Cloud breaks this kiss, shifts to roll onto his stomach. He finds himself quickly pushed down onto his back instead, Zack’s hand in the center of his chest and lube fallen to the bed, forgotten, and Zack’s face above him, eyes strangely intense.

“Like this,” Zack says, and pulls his hand away to grab the lube once more, slowly, like he’s afraid Cloud will try to roll away from him again. “I want to see your face.”

Cloud nods, drawn to the way that Zack is coating his fingers with lube. He spreads his legs just a little wider without a true conscious thought, bites his lip to keep from asking Zack to just hurry. He’s waited so long for this, it seems. 

Zack moves to kneel between them, fans one hand across Cloud’s thigh as though to hold his legs open for Zack’s access. Cloud lets his head fall back to the mattress again, feels Zack’s slicked finger trace his pucker gently, a strange mix of reverent and teasing. Cloud grips at the bed, one hand in the sheets and one hand in the comforter that had been tossed aside when Zack woke that morning, in a desperate bid to stop himself from hiding his face once more. 

Zack wants to see him, after all, and more importantly,  _ Cloud _ wants to see  _ Zack _ . He wants desperately to commit every second of this to memory.

Zack’s finger presses inside, slowly - it’s always a little strange at first, but it’s  _ so _ much better than Cloud, alone in his bed, or with some stranger he’d picked up when he was trying to work his crush out of his system for the hundredth time. Zack is careful and gentle, presses a kiss to Cloud’s bent knee, over and over, while he works Cloud open.

One finger becomes two, two becomes three, and Cloud grips the sheets, rocks his hips down onto the digits. He bites his lip, trying desperately not to do something so shameless as  _ beg _ for Zack to fuck him, but there’s a tiny part of him that wishes Zack would make him ask for it, tease and deny him until he was desperate.

Later, he tells himself. Plenty of time to explore kinks later, and besides, he’s desperate enough in a completely different way. Right now, this first time, he just wants Zack, no games and no roles. They have every moment after this one, after all, and all the days that Zack had promised him after that.

“ _ Zack _ ,” Cloud breathes, rolls his hips down to try and catch Zack’s fingers again as he pulls them slowly out, spreads them wide. When Cloud’s vision focuses, he can see the grin on Zack’s face. 

“What’s that, babe? Need something?” Zack is teasing in that gentle way again, nothing serious at all - they both know where this is going, this is just another little banter, another way to keep the emotions from overwhelming them both.

“Don’t  _ tease _ me, you bastard.” Cloud is going for griping, but he more than likely manages to land somewhere between breathy and whiny. “I swear to God, Zack.”

Zack’s grin is lazy, echoed by the gentle, yet firm press of his fingers inside Cloud. “What you gonna do about it, Spike?”

It’s just like every other teasing banter they’ve had, and Cloud finds himself wearing a grin as well, but his is definitely more toward delirious lunacy than lazy. “If you don’t  _ put your dick in my ass _ -” He’s cut off when Zack’s fingers suddenly press deeper, finding his prostate and  _ rubbing _ , and oh, God, that’s not fair at all. In an instant, the banter is charged, back to that heady heaviness, riding the lightning’s edge that’s crackling between them.

“ _ What you gonna do, _ Spike?” Zack asks again, voice deeper, tone darker, and through the sudden haze, Cloud manages to lunge up just enough to grab Zack by the back of the neck and the forearm - the one attached to the hand currently doing its best to work Cloud over - hard enough that Zack gasps.

“ _ Break the bed _ ,” Cloud manages to hiss in a tone that may even be considered vaguely threatening by someone, somewhere. He collapses back, hands finding the sheets, and when he speaks again it sounds much more like a breathy whine once more. He can’t even find it in himself to be dismayed. “You  _ said _ , Zack.”

It certainly has an effect on Zack. Cloud’s never seen his friend worked up like this, smile gone from his face and replaced by something far hungrier. He looks like he wants to devour Cloud, like Cloud is some virgin sacrifice offered up to a sex god, and Cloud… Cloud’s not sure he can handle it much longer if Zack  _ doesn’t fuck him _ . He’s not even moving his fingers, and Cloud will absolutely cry if he has to, he’s not above it at this point in the evening.

“Fuck,” Zack finally breathes out. “ _ Fuck _ , Cloud, you can’t just say those things.”

Zack’s pulling his fingers out, though, and it’s in equal parts devastating and relieving - Zack will leave him empty momentarily, but only because he’ll be replacing those fingers with his cock. Cloud lifts his head again, watches as Zack reaches shakily for the lube once more, coats his dick liberally. 

And oh, Cloud is ready, so ready,  _ desperate _ for it, wants it more in this moment than he’s ever wanted anything else in his life. “You said,” he utters again, broken record stuck on the last verse. “Zack, you  _ said _ you’d break the -”

“Trust me, I know what I said.” Zack huffs out a laugh, amused and grinning once more. It’s a little sharper around the edges though, determined and daring.

He  _ looms _ over Cloud, rearranges Cloud to his liking with one of Cloud’s legs thrown around Zack’s waist, the other held in Zack’s hand. Cloud drinks him in again, staring openly because he  _ can _ , and loves that Zack is staring right back. Cloud bites back a moan when he feels the wet head of Zack’s dick brush against his hole, barely a touch, another tease.

“Ready, babe?” Zack asks, a breathless lilt to his voice.

Cloud nods, and then there’s a slow press inside, the kind of burn that Cloud  _ lives _ for, made all the more better by the fact that it’s  _ Zack  _ inside him, Zack working him open to take his cock, Zack’s hand tightening around his leg.

“Relax,” Zack murmurs, soft and soothing. “Come on, babe, let me in.”

The sound that escapes Cloud can probably be accurately described as a whimper. God, it’s everything perfect, he never wants to leave this moment, right up until the next one arrives, and the one after that, and then finally,  _ finally _ , Zack is fully inside him. He’s so  _ thick _ , thicker than Cloud’s had before, and of course,  _ of course _ , Zack would be the one ruining him not only for romance but for sex as well, now. 

“You’re never getting rid of me,” Cloud mumbles, sex-drunk and staring wide up at Zack.

Zack’s laugh sounds a little strangled. “That was the plan.” Pink tongue darts out to wet at his lips. “Cloud, can I move?”

“Yeah,” Cloud breathes, and somehow, it gets even better.

It’s slow at first, a gentle pace that warms them both up until it graduates into moderately paced but  _ deep _ thrusts, the kind that have Cloud’s eyes rolling up with every single thrust. He can’t keep the quiet swears and moans from slipping out, and he realizes belatedly that he’s still holding onto Zack’s arm. With great effort, he drags it up, runs his hand from Zack’s clavicle down his chest, and  _ revels _ in the loud grown it elicits from Zack.

“Fuck,” Zack manages, and tears his eyes away from Cloud’s to drop his head, hips not faltering. “Babe, I’m not gonna last long.”

Cloud nods in agreement - he won’t either,  _ can’t _ , not when Zack looks like  _ that _ , all muscle in ethereal glowing green light, hair a mess and eyes wild with something that Cloud’s never seen in Zack before. He wants this to last, knows it won’t, and reminds himself almost hysterically that this will not be the last time he gets this. 

“Zack.” The name is practically scraped out of Cloud’s throat, begging for… he doesn’t even know what.

Zack shifts suddenly, drops Cloud’s leg, and suddenly drags Cloud even closer onto his lap. The change in position is  _ staggering _ \- if Cloud had thought Zack was deep before, it’s got nothing on this, nothing on the way that Zack is now able to slam into Cloud’s prostate. 

“ _ Zack _ ,” Cloud breathes, like a prayer, clings to Zack’s arms like he’ll fly away if he doesn’t hang on.

Zack’s rhythm stutters.

“Touch yourself,” Zack grinds out. “C’mon, Cloud. Don’t wanna…” Another deep thrust, and Cloud cries out. “ _ Fuck _ , don’t wanna come before you.”

Cloud can process the words, but he can’t really make his body obey, as much as he wants to. He keens, a dire, urgent sound, and Zack’s hand leaves his hip to wrap around Cloud’s, guides it down to his own cock. 

It doesn’t take much.

Zack’s hand wrapped around Cloud’s, the pressure and the intensity of just  _ everything _ , and Cloud is coming, arching into Zack’s grip and grinding onto Zack’s cock, chasing the sensation for as long as he can. It’s intense, to say the least, not enough to tempt him into whiting out, but enough to leave him boneless and gasping when the shockwaves roll over him. 

“ _ Cloud _ ,” Zack murmurs when Cloud’s at least semi-aware again - aware enough, at least, to recognize the worshipping, reverent tone, like Cloud’s just done something incredible instead of coming practically the second that Zack touched his dick.

Cloud blinks, slowly, and realizes that Zack is still hard inside him, having stopped his thrusts. He looks  _ wild _ , eyes dark and fingers nearly bruising on Cloud’s hip and tangled with Cloud’s fingers. Cloud shifts, rocks his hips down, and Zack’s grip tightens to the point of pain briefly before loosening once more. 

“C’mon, Zack.” Cloud rolls his hips again, and this time, Zack thrusts forward, like he’s forgetting himself, like he’s trying hard not to lose control and Cloud is testing him. “Zack,  _ fuck me _ .”

“You’re gonna kill me,” Zack grits out, and he picks up the pace again like they never stopped.

It’s almost too much for Cloud, is the thing, but he feels like he’s walking some kind of knife’s edge, like he needs to get as much out of this as possible. He’s  _ sensitive _ , overwhelmed a little, and barely hanging on - fingers grip Zack’s hand and the sheets, gasps practically punched out of him, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. Arousal is still curling low in his belly, but his cock is spent, and his refractory period isn’t about to work any miracles. At this point, though, it’s not about Cloud, it’s about Zack - about watching Zack fall apart, and  _ God _ , but does Cloud want to see that.

He tightens his grip on Zack’s fingers, rocks as best he can with the little leverage he’s got to meet Zack’s thrusts. He hears words of encouragement fall from his own lips, goading and praising Zack in turns, until finally Zack’s breathing goes ragged and his rhythm stutters. Hands grip at Cloud’s skin, pressing so deep that he can feel fingerprint bruises on his soul, and the rush of Zack coming inside him has Cloud gasping out his own moans once more.

And Zack… Zack looks otherworldly for a moment, lost in pleasure, face twisted into something borderline agonizing. Cloud would give anything to see it every day for the rest of his life, especially the way that the line of Zack’s jaw relaxes in increments, the way that Zack’s grip loosens, the softening of Zack as a whole as the man tries very, very hard not to collapse onto Cloud.

“Come here,” Cloud murmurs, and Zack goes, shifts and curls until they’re tangled together, Zack’s face in Cloud’s neck. Cloud runs his fingers down the line of Zack’s spine, closing his eyes and breathing in the quiet that surrounds them now. 

“We’re a mess.”

Cloud snorts. “I’d get a washcloth, but you’re on top of me, so that’s on you.”

“No, I mean…” Zack shifts, pulls back. 

It’s a strange feeling when he moves and slips out of Cloud, and they take a moment to rearrange themselves. The sheets are shot anyway, after all, and Cloud has a feeling a shower is in their future. They face each other, still curled and tangled just enough so that they can see the other’s face, fingers laced together. 

“What do you mean?” Cloud finally asks after a long moment of silence.

“I just.” Zack stops, huffs out a breath. “We could have been doing this for  _ years _ if I would have just bucked up and told you how I felt. Taken the leap, you know? Feels like… like a waste, or something.”

For a long moment, Cloud thinks of all the time behind them, and then all the time before them still. Every minute before this has led up to this moment here, curled together in the quiet, sweat cooling, fingers tangled, and hearts beating wide open for the other. “Wasn’t a waste,” he says, quietly. “A moment’s never wasted when it’s with you.”

There’s no way Zack  _ won’t _ tease him about that, Cloud thinks - it’s incredibly sappy, for one. But to his surprise, Zack just smiles, cheeks coloring in a gentle blush, and he squeezes Cloud’s hand. 

“I’m gonna sound ridiculous now if I say it back to you,” Zack says. “But, uh. Ditto. Not a waste.”

A laugh bubbles out of Cloud. In a moment, he think, he’ll haul Zack into the shower, and then later, back into bed, where they’ll get only a little sleep thanks to the fact that they can finally talk about every single time they’ve fallen in love, over and over again. In the morning, Zack will burn himself trying to make breakfast in nothing but an apron and ruin all of the food in the process.

They’ll leave the apartment, and step into the morning light. Cloud will fall into step beside Zack just as he always has, but this time, Zack will reach for Cloud’s hand and hold it tight the entire way to the diner.

And they’ll have every minute after that.


End file.
